Inaugural Challenge FoF AAR

[Steel God]

Peter;

You have used the abbreviation MSG on several occasions, but if you explained what it meant I missed it. Please enlighten me. I'm sure I'll do this :bang: when you tell me, but my mind is stuck on a food additive and I can't unstick it.

Paul

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Sorry Paul, it's Missouri State Guard, the unit Stirling Price founded, (a Div in the game), starts off with 2 Cav & 2 Inf bgds.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

I showed last turn an eg of how Disease can be pretty devastating, well here is a screenshot of how it can turn out if the Medical attribute has been used.



The corps I ordered in Richmond 2 turns ago has arrived in the James River province; below is a screenshot of it after flaging up (all Corps have the ‘Stainless banner’, divs the ‘Stars & bars) & renaming 2nd Corps Dixie.



In the Corps info box you will see that it’s disposition is Rebellious, this is because it has no commander (3 or 4 star Gen) or troops in, that will soon be rectified. While we are here note the ‘Logistical & Command Staff’ ratings both Normal (not at all bad), it is the improvement of these ratings that you build Academies for. Every so often a message will appear in the Event reports that for eg that the academy in Norfolk had raised 1s Corps Shenandoah logistics to good, command to excellent.

Along the bar where ‘Rebellious’ is printed are little boxes with symbols in that denote the state of or actions the Corps can do, eg the 1st one (with a minus sign in it ) shows that 2nd corps is on Low priority for supply, the X is for disbanding the container, the explosion (the symbols colour up when activated) is for setting the Corps to plunder a city during sieges, white one with crossed sword is the Units History (obviously nothing in there yet), the piece of paper is to look at past ‘Unit orders’, the crossed Swords toggles between ‘Seek battle/Avoid battle, then the line of arrow heads is a toggle between normal/forced marches, and finally ‘Engineering orders’ is a dropdown menu for Siege orders or repairing forts. Phew, hope you are remembering all this, questions will be asked Later!



The ‘Political report’ from the start of the turn shows that Twiggs div did succeed in reducing Unrest but no mention of Bobby Lee doing so in Norfolk, although he was busy raising the quality of Richmond def 2nd Grs. Amongst the other ‘Bits & bobs’ it shows what happened with my Runners in the previous turn, the damaged one I will run into New Orleans to effect repairs (the unrest should have cleared by then.

Right let’s get on with our actual game.

Movement

In line with my ‘Movement to confuse’ gambit, this turn I am pulling 1st Corps out of Shenandoah to Lynchburg, where Lorings Franklin div will detach (by doing that in Lynchburg I’m hoping that ‘Fog of War’ will prevent him seeing where it goes etc.), 1st corps will then continue to Fredericksburg to rejoin ANV. Loring meanwhile will move towards Chattanooga with the idea of joining up with 2nd Corps when it arrives, it will, while waiting 2nd corps arrival bolster the defence of the Knoxville/Chattanooga region. ANV will stay put in Fredericksburg.

From the newly available 1 star Generals in James River I assign McLaws, Hodge & Buckner to 2nd corps which I then move by rail to Greensborough, there, Johnston (4 star gen previously with 1st Corps) joins as Corps commander, the Ft Caswell Grs is also added so the container is not empty. I set 2nd corps to avoid battle in the unlikely event of it bumping into Feds, I also send it via the southern rail network to add to that unlikelihood, I aim it for Rome (the province below Chattanooga), which uses up all but 1 of my 10 RR movement points for this turn.

Out West, I send Van Dorns small Texas div to the Arkansas River to beef up Little Rock defence and also assign 15th inf to his div, this is in case Feds push further south and into Arkansas. With Baton Rouge Unrest down to 1 I’ll gamble and move Twiggs north again towards Memphis, and McCulloch, I order from Ozarks to Westport to create some mischief.



Hope this can be seen on the Screenshot (shown after the move).

Prices Missouri State Guard (MSG) in Paducah has the opportunity of a raid against the city of Louisville (Ohio river); as that city has no garrison (no little green dot/s below it) I’ll take a risk on driving MSG between Fed forces and hopefully capture his undefended city, they will move via the Lower Tennessee river to the West Ohio river and if all goes well I’ll take the city ... if not I’ll just have egg all over my face! There is no guarantee the move will succeed as weather may intervene, I may fail my initiative roll & I’m driving through enemy territory where he may be moving his forces, we’ll see.

The newly promoted Thomas Jackson (2 star) was set to auto join Lee with the 11th James River div

That wraps up moves I think so on to

Builds

Quite a busy turn topping up Medical attributes, 8th inf in Texas div, 26th inf James River Div and Ft Hatteras grs, who were also armed with Mini rifles as were the Stonewall bgd. Ft Donelson grs in the Cumberland Gap were given Mississippi Rifles as they may have visitors soon + the medical attribute lest disease strikes and we are unable to give our visitors a proper welcome.

Finally before it left Paducah (you can’t arm/rearm or give attribute in enemy territory or if enemy units are in the same province) 2nd Cav was given state of the art Breech loading Carbines for the Louisville raid.

Continuing my strategic aims for the rail network a RR was ordered built in Atlanta.

Apologies to the armchair tourists but something went wrong with the Shreveport shot :( , our tour of the Confederacy will continue at a later date.

Please note these reports may slow up or not turn up at all the next few days as I’m back at work for 4 nights and have a fair few other games to deal with as well, we’ll see.

That’s it for now, catch you later.

All the Best
Peter

[Mr Grumpy]

Peter,
I sent you a message with a question about FOF, did you get it?

I used your [email protected] address.

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Sorry Darren No, thats the old puters address, I changed it in my Details and the new one shows on the ACW ladder but it hasn't been updated on the Forums (thought it did that automatically),will see after this if I can do so from my end.

Aaaanyhow, new email address is [email protected]

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

No is the answer can't seem to alter it here, ... Mmmmm, wonder if thats why I never reseived any responces to my Chick'mauga challenge.

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Ha! picture size is uniform throughout now and fits on the page for better reading.

I don't know which kind soul did that but thank you very much it's saved me lots of 'fiddly stuff' via Photobucket, "May you recieve your rewards before you get to heaven"

Cheers

All the Best
Peter

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Turn 5

Dunno how far Alasdair has got with his AARs but I will try and catch up, promise, first off though a,

'Disclaimer'

Please keep in mind I am not the font of all knowledge re FoF I hope what I’m laying down for you is reasonably accurate but don’t bank on it, I am by nature not very good with Rules being more of a PIAS guy, ie, Poke It And See. There is still stuff I ain’t sure about (an eg crops up this turn) as despite several games under my belt I am still learning!

Right lets dive straight in,

Movement

last turn I think I mentioned Fog of War (FoW) well the screenshot below is an eg how it changes and can therefore effect your decisions, last turn I could see what happened in Monongahela province (by Pittsburgh), this turn I cant.



Whats happened is that by moving 1st Corps to join ANV in Fredericksburg I no longer have a sighting of that province so the only info I have is what I remember from the previous turn and what I can pick up off the replay seen before loading the new turn, it is pertinent as I have a quandary, ie warning bells are ringing with the word “TRAP!” associated. If it shows OK on the screenshot you will notice that Ft Hill in Maryland’s Cumberland province has no little green dot beneath it, ie its ungarrasoned!

Mmmm, are Feds attempting to lure me onto their own ground in Cumberland (Blue province indicates Fed owned therefore they will get a defensive Terrain bonus in any battle) and then unleash forces from all the surrounding provinces (including Monongahela which I can’t see) at me while sending a force to take Fredericksburg ?

Now here is the thing I’m not sure on re the Rules, if I have to fight in Cumberland will the ungarrasoned Ft Hill give Feds any fortification defensive bonus, or, because it’s unoccupied will I capture it automatically on entering Cumberland? Well I’m gonna take the pias route, so, the 74,000 strong ANV invades Cumberland!

Before entering the province however (as I can’t change things in an enemy province) I do some alterations, I raise ANV Supply to Normal so the boys have plenty of Ammo, Beans & Backy, and to assist in the slaughter of Yankees (always a ‘Goodthing’) I upgrade Jeff Davis arty to 24 pounders, now I wait to see how it turns out.
Out West;

Twiggs Louisiana div doubles back to Baton Rouge to deal with the fresh outbreak of Unrest, necessitating me pulling McCulloch back to White River, this I do via Fayetteville so as not to risk bumping into Feds entering Ozarks (when I fight in Arkansas I want to have superior numbers).

Van Dorns Texas div, currently around Little Rock, I move to White River to link up with McCulloch, however since I don’t want him entering White River (WR) before McCulloch with the larger div arrives, (there is a faint chance Feds could get to WR before McCulloch), so to ensure that, while moving Texas div I hold down the ‘S’ key on the Keyboard this means Van Dorn will support McCulloch into WR but not go in 1st.

Prices MSG raid against Louisville petered out as it only got as far as the Lower Tennessee River and even then failed to capture the unoccupied province; with any element of surprise now gone, I abort the Louisville raid and turn MSG eastwards to link with 2nd Corps via the Cumberland Gap & Mufreesburg.

Lorings Franklin div I move to Chattanooga where it will join 2nd corps on its arrival, 2nd corps moves by Rail to Chattanooga. My aim here is to have a fairly strong 2nd corps eventually operating along the Kentucky-Tennessee border where it can fairly swiftly move West to Cumberland Gap, Northeast to Virginia or North into Kentucky, while at the same time covering the industrial cities of Chattanooga & Knoxville, and finally for Movement (and this is going to be a contradiction in terms :) ), Lee stays put in Norfolk because of the Unrest.

At sea, the newly repaired Georgia Peach is ordered to Apalache Bay for 50 Horses @ 60/10 while Carolina Pride I move to the Carolina Atlantic from where next turn she can cover all the North Eastern seaboard and a fair way into the Gulf region; she is given no target this turn as the success/risk ratio is not good enough on any of the remaining targets.

Politics

From the Events page (for last turn) we can see that my spends on diplomacy are starting to pay off



This is reflected in an increase to 5 vp Rebs, -5 Feds in the Victory report section (the other 3 are from the earlier victory in battle at Manassas). With French & European support rising to 3, I will also start to get the option on purchasing European weaponry + better & more Runner targets.

John Miltons support for Money production (Mints) will mean a bonus of 15 to money.

Builds

This turn I order another Mine (6 turns) to be built, this time in Augusta GA (foundry city) and another Logistics Laboratory in Raleigh NC (University city).

Hardee is promoted to 2 star Gen to give me a div commander for 4th div Tennessee, Polk has been calling the shots so far.

This turns tourist spot for the end of turn City Detail is Raleigh NC



As you can see money is going to be well down next turn, this is in part due to my putting ANV on Normal supply. In the upgrade section Training leads the field with 5 bulbs lit (apparently the designers forgot that light bulbs hadn’t been invented yet, just shows we are all human even games designers ), the Experience bulbs may light up next turn if there is a large battle in Cumberland, we’ll have to wait and see.

Finally on this page is an example of where despite the favourable aspects 70% & the Governor supporting Voluntary Mustering I will not Muster, with only 3 population figures using 2 for an Inf bgd risks slowing my production there; a dampener on all the Brain power, no thanks!

That’s all for now.

All the Best
Peter

[Steel God]

In the upgrade section Training leads the field with 5 bulbs lit (apparently the designers forgot that light bulbs hadn’t been invented yet, just shows we are all human even games designers ), the Experience bulbs may light up next turn if there is a large battle in Cumberland, we’ll have to wait and see.

Since the bulbs are associated with research, maybe they are the "eureka" type bulbs one would associate with ideas, discovery, etc. Like a cartoon bulb over the head when the Epiphany moment hits you!

Sorry for the interruption, just my Pollyanna approach to looking at things.

[Anthropoid]

Anybody up for a PBEM with this game? Detailed battles on?